Monday, October 29, 2007

...and cream and butter and chocolate. That must mean that the Daring Bakers are back once again. Who are we? Well, we're an online community of bakers who, once a month, receive a recipe chosen by that month's host, make the recipe without modifications (unless allowed by the host), and then blog about the experience on the same day. By following the same recipe, we have a good basis for comparing our results and we get to flex our baking muscles. Our group is now about 200 members strong and we even have a separate blog just to list the links to the participants' blogs!

my how we've grown

I had the honor of hosting this month's challenge. It was difficult to pick just a single recipe. There are too many great recipes and just not enough time. My first inclination was to choose something totally challenging. Something that would require days in the kitchen, ya' know, like the Tartine croissant challenge in January. I joined the group in February so I missed that one. Of course I could go ahead and make the croissants on my own just so I can empathize with the 7 ladies who toiledinbutterandflourfordays, but it's so much easier to just pop over to Tartine Bakery. I'm a bit of a lazy baker so I chickened out and chose a recipe that was relatively straight forward but still included some technical elements that home bakers should try.

It's the end of October so I decided to go with something that had the colors of Halloween (orange and black). I chose Bostini cream pie. No, it's not a typo. Bostini cream pie, like the name implies, is a twist on a traditional Boston cream pie (which is a vanilla layer cake filled with cream and topped with chocolate glaze). The Bostini cream pie is vanilla bean pastry cream topped with an orange chiffon cake and then drizzled with a rich chocolate glaze.

The recipe is from Donna Scala & Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni in the Napa Valley and Scala's Bistro in San Francisco and was published many years ago in the local newspaper. A dinner at Scala's Bistro just isn't complete without having a Bostini for dessert. I wanted to try making this treat at home and dug up the recipe.

When I first read the recipe I was really surprised that the chocolate glaze was just equal parts butter and chocolate. I always assumed the pastry chef had some secret sauce. Nope, it turns out that it was just Valrhona chocolate and butter. Just a warning, do not use salted butter. I did a small test batch with salted butter and it was gross.

I love the combination of orange and chocolate. The orange chiffon cake was so light, spongy, and airy. Just like chiffon cake should be. And it was oh so citrusy. I used a combination of tangelos and valencia oranges for my zest and juice. Freshly squeezed juice really makes a different in the flavor. I've tried it with Odwalla brand bottled "fresh" juice and it wasn't as flavorful.

The recipe called it custard but it's really more like a pastry cream. I've made a lot of different pastry creams before, but this vanilla bean pastry cream / custard was a bit scary because it required 10 egg yolks, just 1 egg white, and almost a whole quart of heavy cream! The pastry was scary delicious but really, really super-duper rich. Next time I would use a less rich pastry cream or even a silky baked custard. This dessert is not everyday fare, but fun for special occasions. I plan on making this during the upcoming holidays.

And, by the way, if you're keeping track, the whole recipe required 14 eggs, 1 quart of heavy cream, some whole milk, half a pound of butter, half a pound of chocolate, half a pound of sugar and a smidge of oil. At least there was some fruit involved.

I've already had a preview of a few of the incredible Bostinis the other Daring Bakers have made, but I can't wait to see the creative plating and how everyone felt about the recipe. So please head over to our blogroll, visit the other talented DBers' blogs, and see their Bostini cream pies for yourself!

To prepare the custard (pastry cream): Combine the milk and cornstarch in a bowl; blend until smooth. Whisk in the whole egg and yolks, beating until smooth. Combine the cream, vanilla bean and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into the egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Strain the custard and pour into 8 large custard cups. Refrigerate to chill.

To prepare the chiffon cakes: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray 8 molds with nonstick cooking spray. You may use 7-ounce custard cups, ovenproof wide mugs or even large foil cups. Whatever you use should be the same size as the custard cups.

Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the oil, egg yolks, orange juice, zest and vanilla. Stir until smooth, but do not overbeat.

Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the beaten whites into the orange batter. Fill the sprayed molds nearly to the top with the batter.

Bake approximately 25 minutes, until the cakes bounce back when lightly pressed with your fingertip. Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cool, remove the cakes from the molds. Cover the cakes to keep them moist.

To prepare the glaze: Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Place the butter in a saucepan and heat until it is just about to bubble. Remove from the heat; add the chocolate and stir to melt. Pour through a strainer and keep warm.

To assemble: Cut a thin slice from the top of each cake to create a flat surface. Place a cake flat-side down on top of each custard. Cover the tops with warm chocolate glaze. Serve immediately.

Please note:I baked my chiffon cake in muffin pans with 3.5 fluid ounce capacity wells. Instead of using custard cups or ramekins for the custard/pastry cream, I used small ceramic pie dishes (about 4-inch diameter across the top).

93 comments:

About to go off and write my post for tomorrow Mary! You choose a great challenge for us this month, tasty and lovely!And if you'd like to still try those croissants, I can probably dig out the 200+ emails we exchanged on that weekend to help you out with it! :-)

Thanks for a wonderful challenge! And indeed it was. I had to do the custard twice to be satisfied - don't add that stuff all up again, it gets really scary. Never did a chiffon cake before, very pretty indeed.Nearly a perfect exponential growth graph!

Thanks for the wonderful challenge and for Daring Bakers allowing me to be a part of this group. I really enjoyed the Bostini and have been quite impressed with everyones presentation. Thanks for challenging all aspects of my baking . Love your graphs, prose, and images. I will post later on tonight/ early morning.

Mary, this looks fantastic! Thank you so much for the challenge, this is my first time with the Daring Bakers and it was a lot of fun. Your blog is fantastic I can't wait to try the Raspberry Walnut Coffee Cake.

Happy Halloween Mary. It really is a great dessert for the season and truly rich, but delicious. I think you picked the perfect recipe which was approachable enough for our newer members but still presented some new experiences for the rest. Thank you! The graph is sort of awe inspiring...we have that many memebers?

Haha - I actually did use salted butter and thought it was fabulous! It added a twist that for me made it much more interesting :) Thank you for picking a fun recipe - something I'd have *never* made on my own :)

I'm going to blame my pregnancy brain, but I don't remember being shocked or surprised by the amount of eggs and cream in this recipe. Perhaps that says something about the kinds of desserts I usually make! My family loved this recipe! And it was so much fun to make. Excellent choice!

Mary, what a great challenge this month! This was my first one and I had a blast. Thanks again for such a unique recipe! BTW- I could not agree more about the OJ. I made a cake a few months ago and cheated with store bought "fresh squeezed"...blegh! I won't be making that mistake ever again!

Had I seen it published in the Chronicle (and I didn't), I would have dismissed it as way too much work. Thanks to you I've tried it, I love it, and I'll make it again the next time we host a dessert buffet.

Thanks for doing such a wonderful job hosting my first challenge. I enjoyed reading your post and your photos are inspirational ! This is definitely a recipe that I will crave and a good one to whip up for a lot of people during the holidays.

Beautiful photos! I love the last one - the cake looks so cute. Thanks for picking a recipe that, while I won't make it exactly the same way again, I will make it again in a way I found to be extremely tasty (by letting the custard soak into the cake over night).

Your Bostinis look fantastic! You chose a great challenge Mary :) This is not the type of dessert I would have chosen on my own, but now that I have made it (despite chiffon cake troubles) I can say I would definitely make it again! Love the layers, the flavor and texture contrasts...a winner :) So thank you for for choosing this!

Mary, I can't believe I didn't get around to commenting yet - I'm behind! Thank you for picking such a delicious and fun recipe to do, everyone's creations are amazing (including yours!) Thanks again for all your hard work!

thanks so much for this recipe, it was a real eye-opener. I didn't think i would like this dessert at all, but ended up adoring it. what a great combination of flavours, my husband called it a jaffa cake on custard and he's not far off... the chiffon cake was so fluffy and moist and gorgeous - a real keeper!

Thank you Mary fr a super tasty challenge. I made the cream a cuple of days before plating and it improved its flavor a great deal. Wonderful! The cake is the best recipe for chiffon cake that I have ever made. Beautiful! It is an honor to be a DB with you!!

Thanks for a great challenge!! I saw an article on the web in SF Chronicle and I thought it had been published recently and wondered about the coincidence, if any? I, too, would do a more silky custard next time. I am used to the traditional boston cream. I used salted butter in the valrhona chocolate and it wasn't good. At first I didn't know where the off taste was coming from and my 11 year son, said its the chocolate. The texture was lovely but I guess Your photos are beautiful. Great Challenge.

Wow, that is a lot of eggs! I would worry about that custard, especially if I was making it. My custard always ends up terribly! Can I ask what the difference is in chiffon cake? I've never actually tried any myself.

ur bostini looks wonderful and im gona try it for a friends gettogehter im having on weekend. the recipe and instructions r clear and ez to follow. just one clarification needed. do we need HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM or just HEAVY CREAM? plz let me know coz i bought whipping cream but the link here: http://www.kitchenlink.com/cookbooks/2000/0811825027_3.html from the original inventors says other wise. and also the whipping cream i bought is in liquid form. is it the same one uv used. i also was unable to get cream of tartar. is there any substitute?il b grateful for ur response. Thanx

Naila - Depending on where you live this liquid milk product can be called heavy cream or whipping cream. In the US it's heavy cream. But whatever it's called, it should have least 36% fat and contain no additives or stabilizers. I also avoid brands that are ultra-pasteurized and UHT.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a good substitute for cream of tartar.

The alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca) is a cousin of the wild strawberry. It's sometimes simply referred to as alpineberry. I love to bake, cook and garden. My blog is a place to share my recipes and other tiny tidbits of my life.